Jealous hadn’t reviewed the Schatz bill, but he says, “The issue of solitary confinement is one of national concern,” adding that solitary is “frequently abused and overused.”

In the past few years the Corrections Department has promised Supermax reforms, but inmate Arthur Belanger Jr., interviewed at the prison, says the Supermax has seen “no changes,” except it’s cleaner. He has spent three years there out of five in prison. After one fist fight, he says, he was kept in the Supermax for a year.

“There’s always going to be guys trying to kill themselves,” he says of the repeated “cutting up” by inmates. He’s seen close to 50 Supermax prisoners cut themselves since 2005, he says.

Belanger, a convicted murderer, says he was celled near Sheldon Weinstein, who died in the Supermax in April after being beaten by other inmates while he was in the prison’s general population. Weinstein, a 64-year-old sex offender who suffered from severe diabetes, “was knocking on his door saying ‘Help me!’” Belanger recalls. A nurse checked his blood pressure, but “they didn’t do much for him.” He added, “you have nothing” in the Supermax. He says no investigator talked with him about Weinstein.

SUBVERSIVE SUMMER | June 18, 2014 Prisons, pot festivals, and Orgonon: Here are some different views of summertime Maine — seen through my personal political lens.

LEFT-RIGHT CONVERGENCE - REALLY? | June 06, 2014 “Unstoppable: A Gathering on Left-Right Convergence,” sponsored by consumer advocate Ralph Nader, featured 26 prominent liberal and conservative leaders discussing issues on which they shared positions. One was the minimum wage.

STATE OF POLARIZATION | April 30, 2014 As the campaign season begins, leading the charge on one side is a rural- and northern-Maine-based Trickle-Down Tea Party governor who sees government’s chief role as helping the rich (which he says indirectly helps working people), while he vetoes every bill in sight directly helping the poor and the struggling middle class, including Medicaid expansion, the issue that most occupied the Legislature this year and last.

MICHAEL JAMES SENT BACK TO PRISON | April 16, 2014 The hearing’s topic was whether James’s “antisocial personality disorder” was enough of a mental disease to keep him from being sent to prison.